1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a method for transmitting/receiving an electronic mail message among a plurality of computers connected via a network to each other, and to an electronic mail transmitting/receiving apparatus. More specifically, the present invention is directed to a technique for determining an address of a transmission destination for an electronic mail message.
2. Description of the Related Art
In most conventional electronic mail tools (software) for controlling transmission/reception operations of electronic mail messages, address notebooks are used in order to manage mail addresses. In general, in this type of address notebook, transmission destination addresses of electronic mail messages are managed in a hierarchical manner, based upon receivers of these electronic mails (for instance, names of offices, names of departments/divisions, and so on). In this hierarchical management case, addresses of transmission destinations are stored in regions denoted by the lowermost hierarchy of the relevant titles (for example, department/division names).
When an electronic mail message is transmitted, a user opens this address notebook and then visually retrieves the desired transmission destination address from the transmission destination addresses contained in this address notebook. Then, the user inputs the retrieved address of the desirable transmission destination into an electronic mail transmitting/receiving apparatus. As a consequence, the electronic mail message can be transmitted to the party in question.
Since the conventional electronic mail transmitting/receiving apparatus is arranged as described above, when the total number of mail addresses recorded in the address notebook is increased, a large number of retrieving operations, as well as lengthened operational time, are necessarily required until the desired transmission destination address can be acquired.
On the other hand, in general, electronic mail tools own the global address communication function by which an electronic mail is transmitted to a plurality of transmission destinations in a batch mode. When this global address communication function is utilized, a plurality of transmission destination addresses should be entered into an electronic mail transmitting/receiving apparatus. However, in such a case, when the desired transmission destination addresses are recorded over several relevant divisions of the address notebook, a user would retrieve/check the contents of this address notebook many times, so that a large number of retrieving/checking operations as well as a large amount of operation time are necessarily required until the desired transmission destination address could be found.
Also, in an address notebook, mail addresses are managed in a hierarchical manner with respect to topics (key words). If mail addresses recorded in an address notebook are managed both in the hierarchical manner based upon receivers of the electronic mails and also in the hierarchical manner with respect to topics, then a desired transmission destination address may be quickly found out. However, to execute this hierarchical manner with respect to topics, the mail addresses should be registered in the address notebook as to the relevant topics in addition to the relevant divisions. In other words, the same mail address must be registered in a duplicative manner. As a result, it is very cumbersome to register/change/manage the mail addresses, and furthermore, the resultant data amount of this address notebook is considerably increased.
As previously described, in the conventional electronic mail transmitting/receiving apparatus arranged in such a manner that a desired mail address is retrieved from the address notebook used to manage the electronic mails, it is, as a practical matter, difficult to quickly acquire a relevant mail address of a desired transmission destination.
To solve these problems, another conventional mail address retrieving method with using key words has been proposed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 6-326733 opened in 1994. In this mail retrieving method, both the IDs (mail addresses) used on the network and the key words relevant to these mail addresses are registered into the database. Then, a transmission document is combined with a key word, a request to send an electronic mail is accepted, and the electronic mail is transmitted to a transmission destination address whose key word is coincident with the above key word.
Similarly, another conventional electronic mail transmission technique has been disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. 4-130839 opened in 1992, in which the transmission destination is determined by using the key word, and thus the electronic mail is transmitted to this determined transmission destination. In this conventional technique, the key words and the data indicative of the terminals of the transmission destinations are previously registered while establishing relationships between these key words and data. When a request to send an electronic mail is issued which does not specify a transmission destination, a check is done as to whether or not the above-described key word is contained in this electronic mail. If this key word is contained in the electronic mail, then the electronic mail is transmitted to the terminal relevant to this checked key word.
However, since the above-described conventional methods as disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Applications No. 6-326733 and No. 4-130839 require the key word to be registered, such an additional operation is necessarily required in addition to the other conventional electronic mail using method.